Retreat

What I did (in brief, with many pictures, hopefully)

Wednesday... We (fourteen full-time volunteers from La Puente) headed north at around 9am. We took the scenic route there which was nice because it cuts through beautiful mountain scenery as opposed to the flatness that is the interstate way. We stopped in Leadville for about a 15-20 minute sack lunch. This is a very old mining town. There we saw a saloon from 1870s, I believe. It was beautiful inside - you can hopefully glimpse some of that in the picture of the booths to the left. Leadville has the Mining Hall of Fame located there. It is also the location where the Unsinkable Molly Brown (from the Titanic) made her fortune with her husband before moving to Denver. Finally, it is also near Mt. Elbert, the highest point in Colorado. I think that is the mountain that is in the picture to the right. We arrived in Georgetown (45 miles west of Denver) to the home we were staying at around 3pm. It is a quaint little town. The home that we stayed in belonged to the family of a former La Puente volunteer; it was an old (1870s) Victorian style home. The highlight of my night (which may sound pathetic to some) was meeting Tonka, a short-haired St. Bernard dog. She was standing on Main Street while her owner was doing some work inside the building. We walked over to her. I talked a bit to the owner and then I fell in love with the dog. She was so friendly and so BIG! I don't think that I have ever seen a St. Bernard in person before. Because she was a short-hair her owner said she did not drool as much, but she still shed buckets of hair! I took a picture with her in which she gave me a big ole kiss for! The rest of the evening was pretty low key - supper, group activity, conversation, and for me, bed.

Thursday... we had breakfast out a the Happy Cooker in town. I had a delicious meal of Eggs Benedict. Then, around 1pm we left for Denver. We toured a place called Urban Peak. It is one of the only homeless shelters able to provide a place for people under the age of 21. The majority of the youth that come are between 18-20, but they are able to take youth younger - with consent of a parent/guardian. Some of the youth that come are runaways, some are drug/alcohol users, some are dropped off by parents who "just can't take it anymore." It is a pretty rundown facility, but it provides a major service in helping youth get off the street. We were supposed to go see the Women's Bean Project as well, but we had gotten lost and therefore arrived after they closed. We ate supper at Abssynian Ethiopian Restaurant in Denver. It was delicious food, and not too spicy, which is what it was last time I ate Ethiopian food! We drove back to Georgetown for the night (view from our house on the right).

Friday... we headed into Denver by about 9am. We went to Step 13 for an informational tour. It is a facility for men with drug/alcohol addictions. It looks like an amazing program. Currently, there are 87 men receiving help. The men come voluntarily. They have a place to sleep, eat, and learn some skills. Apparently, they have to be out of the building most of the day to either be working or looking for work; so when we visited it was deserted. The motto of the program is "Work Works". As the men get jobs and save money, the are able to move from the dorm-style living to an individual room to a bigger individual room, to a studio apartment to a place on their own. The average stay is 1-2 years. They have a shop where they employ six men to do mechanical and detail work on donated cars which are then resold for funding for the program. I was impressed with this place. We went next to The Crossing which is the transitional shelter of Denver Rescue Mission. They also work with men with addictions and also families wanting to transition out of homelessness. It is a very large facility! It was a bit overwhelming and I felt more lost during the tour, which is maybe why I don't remember as much information. We then went to the Denver Art Museum for about 2 hours of art. They had a display of "Amish and Mennonite Quilts: from the Big Valley and Beyond" in the textile section. I personally have seen a more diverse and more numerous display at any relief sale. There were only about 12 quilts on display. The quilt to the right was the only one on display that said "Holmes County, Ohio" on it. I think there may have been another one or so that said Ohio in general. Many were from Pennsylvania; some may have been from Nebraska. A more general picture of the quilts on display is to the left under the sign about the display. My last picture from the art museum is of one of the paintings that caught my eye. I would give credit to the artist, but I neglected to take a picture of the informational sign beside it; if anyone knows who did this, feel free to comment and credit the painter. We left the art museum and were on the road by around 4pm. We were back in La Jara after what felt like a looong ride around 8:15pm or so. It is good to be home and able to sleep on my own mattress rather than the deflating air mattress I was sleeping on the past two nights.

really quick

okay, I have exactly one minute to get something down before we leave for the gym where Claire and I are going to a yoga class... hope I don't fall asleep. I didn't plan on writing a whole lot, but I just wanted to let you know that I am going on a retreat for La Puente Volunteers for the next three days. So, if there are no blogs, it is because I am not around. We are headed to Denver - long drive! I am hoping it will be a great time with everyone. I don't know all of the other volunteers very well, and this will be a good opportunity to get to know them. I hope everyone has a great rest of the week. Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate - and to those who don't, you should ... it is a great excuse to go out with a significant other or excellent friend - seize the hallmark holiday!

Skiing!!!!

As promised, I took some ski pictures. We went to Wolf Creek Ski Resort between South Fork and Pagosa Springs (if you look on a map); it is reputed to have the most snow anywhere in Colorado. I think this is probably true. The day was absolutely perfect. I shed the liner in my coat after about an hour of skiing because I was hot! Jeremy and I skiied the day with Kendra, our new MVSer and first time skiier. She went down the bunny slope (which you had to ride a lift to!) fast and furiously colliding with the safety fence at the bottom of the slope by the lift. This got us a lecture on needing ski school lessons, dangers of reckless skiing, and "have you read the Colorado responsible skiiers code?" I thought it was all quite unnecessary. If she would have happened to wipe out before making it to the bottom of the slope - as most people would have done - they (the lecturers) would have been none-the-wiser. Regardless, we took the lift back up and this time Kendra learned the to snow plow before shooting down the mountain. She was a natural and was as good as me by the end of the day. (I don't know what that really says about her skill, except that she learned quickly.) Anyway, it was fun. We found a couple long winding paths that we felt skilled at and could go fairly fast; it is invigorating! The picture (top left) shows Kendra and Jeremy gliding down one of the easier slopes. We also tumbled down "Thumper" a blue slope with extremely deep powder. That was by far the hardest one because you sunk into the powder when you tried turning. You can see the speck of Jeremy on this slope in the picture on the bottom right. We all wiped out numerous times, but Jeremy had the least number of falls on this slope. We did a few other blues more successfully. The last picture (bottom left) is Jeremy and I at the top of the mountain. What is over our shoulder is breathtaking, and where if you want to brave the possibilities of getting lost, avalanches, etc you can go back country skiing; we didn't brave anything! We started skiing at 10:30am, took a short (20 min) lunch break, and finished skiing around 3:30pm (it closed at 4). It was a good day, but boy, am I sore and tired ... even writing this the next morning!

What do MVSers do for fun?

Today, Care and Share came. Care and Share is a place where we buy some of our food and a lot of our treats. They are an organization that provides food to non-profits that in turn provide food to low income people (that's us!); so places like the shelter and the food bank also order from here. Anyway, when you order you never know exactly the brand you will get or if it will be expired or not - it is just surplus - but you do get to choose what you order. We ordered a lot of things - gaterade, chicken in a biscuit crackers, mac and cheese, turkey, and oatmeal. But most importantly, we ordered "Milk/Dark chocolate bars" for an estimated $2. What we got was a box of 50 high quality Hershey's bars (whole bean, antioxidant milk chocolate, and 60% dark). It also came with the whole display case. So, what do MVSers do for fun on a weeknight... set up display stands for chocolate. Note pictures..
Step one: Set up foundation. Step two: Put in dividers.












Step Three: Admire Work.

The Week in Short ... or maybe long

So, it has been awhile since I've blogged, sorry about that everyone. I guess time got away from me during what felt like a long week - strange. Anyway, I'll get to it.

On Monday night, I played in the women's 4-on-4 volleyball league for the first time. Three of my teammates are between the ages of 25-29; and one is about 40-some. They apparently all know each other - either coach, teach, or just have a connection together. This is not bad; I just felt left out for this first night during the after game conversations. I am sure this will change some as time goes on. On the court, they are good volleyball players. I am still getting there. I haven't played for so long that I am definitely rusty. My passing game is probably the worst - or maybe it is just my quickness. I watched a lot of balls drop in which I thought, "I need to go get that; it is short.", but then I didn't even make a move to go get it. I just need to re-develop my mind-body connection! I did (to my benefit) have some nice hits and blocks. There is something about being able to stuff a ball back over the net that is coming at your hands full speed. At any rate, we won in 3 fairly close games.

On Tuesday, we had a snow delay, as Jeremy mentioned. It is nice to go into work for a half day.

On Wednesday, I helped at PALS for my first official time. They take the kids to the gym at the Methodist church on Wednesdays now. Apparently, they just run around and "play". I think that it sounds loud and uncontrolled for 1-1/2 hrs, but I didn't have to go today. Instead there were two boys (ages 10 and 8) who had run away - apparently thinking it would be fun to play "Catch me if you can" - last time they went to the gym. So, I volunteered to stay back with them as their discipline. For the first half hour, I only had one boy because the other one had an appointment. It was a half hour of what I called, "I get to choose everything you do." So, we did multiplication facts, spelling, reading, and Colorado history review. Then, the other boy came and it was an hour of "You get to choose, as long as I agree." We played Pictionary, read trivia (I attempted to answer the questions), drew with a spriograph, shared a snack, played a game called Snake Pit, and talked. The boys said, "This is the best day of PALS ever!" I don't know if my discipline was that effective! At the same time, it was probably the first day of PALS in which it was quiet (no 5-year-olds running and screaming) and where they had an adult almost to themselves. I enjoyed my time as well. It is redeeming to spend time with children one-on-one who have been frustrating for you because they see you differently and you see them differently.

On Thursday, I stayed at the office all day. It is not my favorite thing to do because time gets long, but sometimes they need extra help answering the phones, so they get some things done. I also started a cold. My throat had been sore, but it is definitely turning into a cold - YUCK. Claire made great pot stickers for supper, and we watched LOST on TV.

On Friday, I did a number of different things during the day - office, Milagros, library, Rainbow's End, back to the office. It was good to get out and walk around town. It was a beautiful day - about 40 degrees and sun! On my way back to the office, I gave my parents a call. I knew I wouldn't finish the call before getting to the office so I sat on the sidewalk of Atencio's Market (leaning against the building) about a block from the office. It was a perfect spot to sit - dry sidewalk, wall to lean against, and the sun shining directly on my face. As I was talking, the owner came up and said, "You know you can't just be sitting here." I said, "Oh, okay." So, I told my parents I needed to go and hung up the phone. I have never been in trouble for loitering before! I went up to him (his name is Junior) and said, "I'm sorry. I was just finishing up my phone call before I head back to La Puente where I work." He said, "Oh, I didn't know you worked at La Puente. I thought you were loitering. I guess I didn't recognize you." I had recognized him because he comes into the offices sometimes to do business. I obiviously was still loitering, but at least he knew I wasn't one of the drug dealers or other people that really do occassionally loiter outside his store. Live and learn. Jeremy and I rented Pirates of the Carribbean 3. I was an okay movie, but I don't think I remembered enough of the other two to make it a good movie. That's okay. We hadn't had a movie night for awhile and that was nice.

On Saturday (today), I slept until 9:45am! That was my main objective for the day - to sleep in - so you can see this will not be a stressful day. I am still fighting this cold and figure extra sleep never hurts. Otherwise, I will clean the living room (my job for the week), fold the laundray that I washed last night, eat supper at Emmy and David's, and kill time. Tomorrow we will go skiing at Wolf Creek Ski Resort.... Ski Report as of 2/9/08 at 10:33am -

Summit Base Depth: 189 inches

Midway Base Depth: 153 inches
Storm Total: 2 inches
Snowfall YTD: 434 inches

Forecast for Sunday, Feb. 10: Sunny, 29*F, light winds

I imagine we will be skiing on lots of powder! I'll let you know if I stay on my skis, and I'll take some pics.

Jeremy's Two Cents

Erin is busy reading a book right now...so I FINALLY get the opportunity a write a little bit here in the blog.

Let it Snow!!!
As many of you know it has been really really really cold here. It still amazes me that the temps get down to -10 and sometimes even -30 almost every night. What may be more amazing is that everyone here acts like that is no big deal. They often explain that it is a "dry" cold which I guess is true, and often we do have sunshine, which does help..but the sun has to be shining!!..... anyway I look at it is still pretty stinking cold!!! But I think we are gradually getting used to it.

One thing that has been quite unusual here this year is the amount of snow that we have been getting along with the cold. I don't think we have seen the ground here since around thanksgiving. Tuesday we got a pretty good dumping again, we were all late for work that day since we literally had to dig out the vehicles. There was enough snow that the city brought in heavy equipment (front end loaders and giant "snowblowers" as seen in the pic) to load the snow into dump trucks and take out of town because there wasn't anywhere to put it all.

My supervisor Mike tracks snow pack levels in the San Juan Mountains. The Rio Grande starts near the Continental Divide in the San Juans. Snowpacks are very important and closely monitored here in the valley, and actually most of the west, as majority of the precipitation that is received over the year is in the form of winter snow in the mountains. Mike showed me a interesting stat, so far we are at 178% of a average snow pack for this time of the year!! Basically if that keeps up it will be the largest snowpack on record so this may be a very wet spring/summer. Also I just checked the Wolf Creek Ski Resort ski report and it says they have received 432 inches of snow total this winter so far (Thats 36 feet if you don't have a calculator handy)!!! We are going to be heading there on Sunday for Local Appreciation Days so we will let every know what it is like to ski with that much snow!

Work Work Work
Erin has been doing great with things at La Puente, they really like her over there and have been keeping her busy in the office, with the enterprises, and now at PALS. The teacher in her seems to be really enjoying working the the kids at the PALS program.

I thought I would share a little of what I have been doing with the RGHRP. Mostly I have been working on a monitoring program for stream bank stabilzation projects that we helped fund and organizing data that we collected for that monitoring program in the fall. Since I have been in the office quite a bit lately I also created webpages for both the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District (www.slvwcd.org) and the Rio Grande Headwaters Restoration Project (www.riograndeheadwaters.org). Feel free to check them out, they go into a more detail about what I "do" here. They still need a little fine tuning, and we may add a few more items but are pretty much up and running.

Well thats about all for my two cents now, as always we hope things are going well with everybody and don't hesitate to send us an email or give us a call to let us know how you are doing.

Go Giants, and more

Okay, so since it is Super Bowl Sunday first things first - Yea, Giants! and Yea, Super Bowl for being an exciting game for once. It is really nice to watch the game here in Colorado because it starts at 4:15 and ends by 8pm; you still have an evening. We went over to a church party for half of the game. It was nice to have a projector to put the game on a wall for all to see.

In other news...
*I decided to do the PALS program on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It will give me time to interact with the kids, but not burn me out before I head back to school in August. They have a pretty intense summer program with the kids. So, I am excited that I have the opportunity to spend some time with this program. I see so much need in the children for attention and love. Many of them come from very difficult home lives. I cannot imagine what some of these 5 year olds have been through.
*On Friday and Saturday, I attended a training through Center for Restorative Programs (formally called, VORP). It was very interesting to be trained how to mediate. The Center provides opportunities for victim-offender reconciliation (VORP), parent-teen mediation, and teen-teen mediation. It is very different with each situation. It is not an easy thing to do, but what an amazing opportunity it offers to people to come to the table and work through life issues.
*Jeremy attended environmental seminars on Thursday at Adams State College here in Alamosa. I think he enjoyed hearing more about what issues were out there and what is being done to work on these.

Tomorrow is my big volleyball day! We'll see how the women's team will be. I am looking forward to it, but a bit worried that I won't be fit enough to really play. I'll let you know.